People who live anywhere along the Earth’s tectonic plate boundaries (the so-called “ring of fire” know that at any time  “the big one” – a really, really large, damaging earthquake – could happen. The largest earthquake in recorded history was a 9.5 event along the coast of Chile in 1960. The second largest was a 9.2 along the southern coast of Alaska in 1964. Since January, 1700, only six events have occurred that were 9.0 or larger – one of them as recently as 2004 in Sumatra, Indonesia.

"Myths are stories told by people about people: where they come from, how they handle major disasters, how they cope with what they must and how everything will end.” – Robert O’Connell 

News and images of the January 12th Haiti earthquake and its aftershocks are unspeakably horrendous. As we join millions of others around the world in support of coordinated relief efforts, we also want to help spread the word on how to help.

Click on the following links to make donations online, or to learn more about how to participate in other ways.

I plugged in my old address in Altadena, California to this site’s damage estimator, and placed a magnitude 7.5 earthquake (a plausible event) on the San Andreas fault. I placed the epicenter near Palmdale, California. The result I got was unsettling, and frankly made me glad I now live in an area where I only have to worry about ice storms, blizzards, tornadoes and mosquitoes. Here’s what I got:

A basic homeowner’s insurance policy in the U.S. does not cover earthquake related loss or damage. Although 90% of the country's population lives in seismically active areas, only a fraction are covered by earthquake insurance. Even in California, the majority of the state’s homeowners opt out. A common perception is that earthquake insurance costs too much and offers little coverage.